1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a network management system, and in particular, to a network management system having a display for and a network status display method-of displaying a network configuration and a network operation status.
2. Description of the Related Art
The network management system is installed to enhance efficiency of the network operation.
To implement the network management system as a management information model according to an object-oriented design, discussion has been conducted on international standards in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), namely, "ISO/IEC/DP10165-1" and "ISO/IEC/DP10165-4".
Moreover, in the Proceedings of the 1990 IEICE (the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineer of Japan) Spring Conference (B-606), there has been proposed a method of displaying a network configuration and a network operation status in a screen image constructed in association with a management information model according to the object-oriented design above.
In the communication network management and display method above, various resources to be managed or managed object instances are related to icons abstractly expressed according to the object-oriented design such that the network configuration and network operation status are displayed by use of the icons.
Actually, since a communication network includes a large amount of managed object instances, it is impossible for the display method above to present for all of the instances on a screen. Namely, there will be naturally displayed necessary instances selected in an appropriate fashion. In consequence, an essential technological problem resides in how to selectively display a group of important managed object instances in a display screen having a limited size and how to reflect onto the screen status changes of managed object instances not currently being displayed on the screen.